Baroness Philippine de Rothschild is the owner, with her children, of three great Châteaux at Pauillac in the Médoc: Château Mouton Rothschild, Premier Cru Classé, Château d'Armailhac and Château Clerc Milon. She is Chairman of the Supervisory Board and majority shareholder of the family company, Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA, the leading exporter of AOC Bordeaux wines, which produces and markets the famous Mouton Cadet.
Philippine de Rothschild spent her childhood in France during the Second World War. Her father, Baron Philippe de Rothschild (1902-1988), had joined General de Gaulle in London; meanwhile her mother was deported to Ravensbrück, where she died in 1945. Philippine herself miraculously escaped death.
In love with the theatre, she graduated from the Paris Conservatoire National d'Art Dramatique in 1958 and was engaged by the Comédie Française. Divorced from the actor and director Jacques Sereys, she is married to the scholar and writer Jean-Pierre de Beaumarchais. She has three children: Camille, born in 1961, Philippe, in 1963, and Julien, in 1971.
She continued her stage career after leaving the Comédie Française, playing one of the leading roles in "Harold and Maude" with Madeleine Renaud between 1973 and 1980.
She subsequently became increasingly involved in the life of Mouton and the family business, creating amongst other things the travelling exhibition "Mouton Rothschild - Paintings for the Labels", which brought the original artworks created by famous painters for the Mouton labels to a worldwide audience.
On her father's death, Philippine de Rothschild assumed all his duties and responsibilities. Since then, she has raised ever higher the star of Mouton, an illustrious wine and a prime tourist attraction. With infectious energy, she has modernised the facilities of the family company, extended its product range and made it commercially more effective, and successfully established it in several major winegrowing regions in France and abroad, producing both premium and branded wines.